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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Butterflies in the Stomach

So one of the first things you notice about butterfly is that it’s tiny, but if it can produce cupcakes like that, then who cares!!

Butterfly Café is tucked away in a little corner of Union Park. You can go down Ambedkar Road and take a left. The road bifurcates after a bit and you have to go to your right. Take a left after that and Butterfly Café will be at your right, be careful though, it’s easy to miss.

There’s no décor to speak of, but like I said the venue is completely subordinate to the food. Or in this case weirdly-shaped mountains of delight!

Hands down the best thing on the menu is the Butterfly Special. The cupcake is lovely and moist, the icing wonderfully silky and each bite into the cake is rewarded with a dollop of chocolate ganache. Priced at Rs 75, it may be a little expensive but it’s a small price to pay for what is truly an orgasmic experience!

A really awesome cupcake for the wannabe foodie is the Red Velvet Cupcake. Its salient features are that it’s red (duh!) BUT it’s also really yummy, because it’s got this lovely cream cheese icing. I know that it might not be everyone’s cup of cake err tea but it’s really pretty good. The slightly salty icing and the sweet cake compliment each other really well. As with all the other cupcakes the texture of the icing is wonderfully silky.

They do a decent peanut butter cupcake and a really good hazelnut swirl. But the Butterfly Special is the one that makes the taste buds sit up and take notice.


Today’s Tip:

After 2 alcohol suggestions I thought we should get back to the foods I’d like to share he recipe for this simple snack I often make for myself on a Sunday afternoon when the maid’s are on leave.

Ingredients

1 packet of Monaco Biscuits

1 box of Boursin cheese spread

5 slices of ham

Method

Spread the biscuits out on a plate

Cover them with the cheese spread

Cover the cheese spread with your slices of ham

Ready to eat!

It’s a lovely little recipe; the spread has a smooth, creamy texture and flavor which offsets the saltiness of the ham and the biscuits. You can pick up the spread at most supermarkets.

Mia Cucina - My House!

We all have our favorite restaurants where when we walk in, the waiter knows our first names, our family history and whether or not we have regular or mineral water.

One of my favorite restaurants is Mia Cucina (my home) in Bandra.

The reasons I go there are varied, for one thing, it’s a two minute drive from my house and for another, I LOVE the food there.

Finding it is really easy. If you’re coming from Turner road, you take a right at the Pot Pourrie signal and go straight until you see Gold’s Gym on your left. You take a left and go into the lane leading to Pali Hill and Mia Cucina will be on your right.

The valet service is prompt and more importantly they don’t loose your keys or wreck your car while they’re in the process of parking it!

The décor is really simple and understated, and no this is not a nice way of saying ‘it sucks’. The restaurant outside is dimly lit and the tables are perfect for a small intimate dinner. When you go inside, things get a little more crowded.

The waiters are quick to take your order and the first thing you get when you sit down is a small roll of the most delicious homemade bread accompanied with a small pat of herbed butter. The bread is soft, with a light crust on the outside and is like a little slice of heaven!

A big let down is that they don’t have a liquor license so they only serve wine and like almost everywhere else in Mumbai the Indian wine is mediocre (Sula and Château Indage again!!) The imported wine was so expensive that I didn’t even try it (Rs 450!!)

I should say that I’m not really a big fan of Italian cooking, I can’t stand Pasta or Lasagna or Spaghetti. When I go to an Italian restaurant I generally order a steak, or if they don’t have it, a chicken and mushroom risotto. I also have a rule about eating pizza, which simply put is don’t eat it unless it has the equivalent of two pigs or a cow as toppings.(Meat Feast from Smoking Joe’s)

Now the starters are good, but not spectacular. I highly recommend you skip the starters and go straight to the main course.

They have a pretty decent steak-that’s what I had the first three or four times I went there. However I once went there pretty late at night and they were out of beef. The owner suggested I try the quarto formaggi (four cheese) pizza. I was pretty apprehensive of trying a pizza with only cheese (what, no meat!) But I was really hungry and too tired to argue so I just went with what he said and boy was I glad to do it!

The pizza crust was insanely good, not too doughy and not too brittle. It’s kind of like the perfectly cooked naan, with loads and loads of cheese on it.

I should tell you I’m not even a fan of cheese, I like my cheese to be light not heavy, but this was seriously sensational! All four cheeses are mixed together on the pizza, its slightly bitter and very heavy (duh 4 cheeses?) It’s impossible to finish a whole pizza (even for me!) At Rs 450, for a 10 inch pizza, the price is pretty reasonable.

I recommend the mushroom risotto, to which you can add chicken for an extra cost. It’s a rich, creamy risotto, the chicken is well cooked and succulent and the mushrooms add a lovely chewy texture to the dish. The dish is priced at Rs 400 + Rs 60 for the chicken

And now we come to my favorite part of a meal. Dessert!

Don’t even think, go for the Decadence cake and you’ll never regret it! The chocolate in that cake is among the best I have ever had, the only word to describe it is ambrosia!

The cost for this decadence (pardon the pun) is Rs 150.

A meal for two as described above without any drinks costs about Rs 1200

What I liked:

Food
Service(reasonably prompt)
Waiters(actually knew what they were talking about when they were suggesting dishes)

What I did not like

Tables are too close together
No home delivery
Very crowded even on a Tuesday night (I suppose that’s a good thing)


Today’s tip is another cocktail; I invented this for a girlfriend of mine who didn’t like any of the regular cocktails you normally get in bars

The Chocolate Bomb

Ingredients

1. 1 bar of cooking chocolate (you can use Cadbury’s in a pinch but this is better)
2. 4 tablespoons of sweetened cream
3. 2 scoops of chocolate Ice Cream
4. 2 Tablespoons of Kahlua (use dark rum if you don’t have any but it’s not as good)
5. Half a bottle of Brandy (Honey bee will do)

Method

Melt the chocolate in a saucepan
Once it’s melted add the sweetened cream
Stir well
Add brandy
Add Khalua
Stir again
Pour into two big glasses
Add Ice Cream
Chocolate Bomb explodes!